An apt title for this season in between the two holidays. Last month, our family spent each day sharing about things and people for which we are thankful. Now we have transitioned into thinking about giving gifts, the Greatest Gift, and the Giver. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!
Each day in November, we put one word (or two or three) of thanksgiving on a fall leaf that we taped up on the wall around our kitchen. We are thankFULL! Here is our list. We took the liberty of writing some for Isaiah as well. I'm sure you can spot his. ;) And Zoë's for that matter.
Thanksgiving with the Nelson cousins
Pie!
Love
Big Sister
Grace
Laughter
Colors
Friends
Bedtime giggles
Sunshine
Hope
Gingerbread House Making with Zoey,
who will be moving soon. :(
Bananas & Daddy & Mommy & Isaiah
Family Night
Big Girl Bikes!
(That she likes to borrow...though there will be one appearing under the tree soon :)
"Look, Ma! No training wheels!"
Warm house
Ella (Zoë's imaginary friend)
Conversation
Our silly girl!
Pumpkins & dogs
Princesses
Zoë enjoys composing her own music
This one is entitled "He wants to be a princess."
Oh my!
Zoë & Isaiah (Didi's contribution when she came to visit)
Mommy's milk
Medicine (for a house-full of sickies)
Look at those toofers! Count 'em - 1, 2, 3 and #4 on top!
"God is with me - I don't have to be afraid"
Family
Holidays
7 months old and still not quite interested in sitting up
(He likes to throw himself backwards. Must have learned that from his sister...)
Bath time
Sleep (which has been rare this past month)
Puzzles
Working on those pre-crawling skills!
Date nights
Didi (thanks for coming to visit!)
He may not sit much, but loves to stand
Oh. My. Handsome.
Jesus & Mommy & Daddy
Good and gracious God
Family "sleigh ride" at the Brite housing Winter Party
Our little apartment has become "home" and is cozied up with Christmas lights, a big tree and other fun Christmas decorations. We've begun our Advent journey - lighting candles, reading through Scripture, and putting up our Jesse Tree ornaments every day. I am loving this season with Zoë old enough to start to comprehend God's great love story. Our family Christmas tradition is to each spend the weeks of Advent preparing a gift for Jesus - a song, a dance, a prayer, a painting - that we then "give" to him by sharing it with one another in honor of his birth. It is a beautiful way to keep Christ at the center of our Christmas celebration and to show our gratitude to God, the Giver, who sent us a Savior, Jesus - the Greatest Gift of all time.
Isaiah has been alive for 6 months.
We've been in Texas for 3 months
How does life go by so quickly?!
During these three months of returning to being a full-time-mom, God has been teaching me a great deal about parenting. I found myself getting overwhelmed and stressed out when reading parenting books. Every book was a different method and more and more things I needed to know and implement - but which way was the best way? Could I combine them? And when I would figure something out that worked, someone would tell me about another method or philosophy and I would wonder - what if that would be better? Not to mention - who has time to read all these books?!
So, I stopped reading parenting books. And decided to read more of the Bible.
James 1:5 helped the light bulb go off in my head: "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault." I need wisdom to know how to best parent my children, and God has it! God, our Father, knows ALL about parenting, and He is eager to share that wisdom with us. (**Please note - I'm not saying that parenting books are bad or unhelpful. It was just too much for me to have so many different and often conflicting voices in my head. I needed to hear it from one source.)
Suddenly, everything I read or heard at church or Bible study, or sung while listening to the radio, or woke up thinking in the middle of the night was teaching me about parenting. And, knowing that my memory is poor, the Holy Spirit helped me compile it all fall into three categories all conveniently beginning with the letter "S." I share these with you not to say, "Here is another method!!" or imply that I am now a perfect parent...no, not at all. I share in hope that what I am learning may encouarage or help others, and most importantly, as a testimony to the active work of God in my life through the Holy Spirit, speaking, teaching, encouraging, counseling and guiding.
Say "Yes" Show Love Slow & Simple
Say "Yes"
be available
be present
"No's" are necessary for teaching boundaries for protection and health. Little ones need to hear and obey "No" so that they learn to respect our authority first - in hopes that they will be good citizens and most importantly, learn to live under the authority of God.
But they also need to hear "Yes." Yes, I can come have a tea party with you, even though I need to do housework. Yes, we can go outside, even though I am tired. Yes, I can sing that song for the tenth time in a row. Yes, you can wear that outfit you picked out yourself even though I don't think it matches. Yes, I will build a castle fort with you and venture into your imaginary world. Yes, I will let you help me with dinner, even though it will take twice as long.
Yes, I will hold you a little longer; Yes, I will comfort you in the middle of the night; Yes, I will take time to smile at you and tickle you and make you giggle even though I am exhausted and thinking about the long list of things that need to get done.
I never want to be too busy either physically or mentally to miss out on the beauty of having true relationship with my children. When it doesn't hurt anything or anyone, when it is just maybe a little inconvenient or awkward, when the only reason I might say "no" is more because of my own selfishness and wacked-out priorities, I can say YES.
Show Love
love ferociously
lovingly confront and cover with grace
be controlled and compelled by love
elicit love and not fear
It is easy to show love when I do say "yes," but when I have to say "no" and discipline disobedience, I still need to show love. Why?
Because God, the perfect parent, is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and when God does get angry, He expresses His anger in love.
Because perfect love casts out fear, and love alone can drive out hate, while disciplining out of anger only produces fear and leads to enmity.
Because the authority that I have been given over my children is to reflect the authority of the King, whose kingdom is grace and reign is love.
What does this look like? I don't really know yet. Maybe it looks like second chances, time-outs for me to check my heart and time-ins for us to find the root of the issue, hugs instead of yelling, building up instead of tearing down, lots of apologies and forgiveness, learning to forget so that past behavior doesn't determine or influence current treatment, and asking God to help me to love my enemies so that when battles emerge and insults bring pain, I can choose love.
Slow & Simple
enjoy
treasure
savor
listen
watch
peace.
It is a busy world we live in. Everyone is running around with full plates and full days. I've had my share of busy, and now I just get overwhelmed watching other families rush here and there and fill up their calendars to the brim.
But I can't really say "yes" when my schedule is so full that I am sprinting from one thing to the next with kids in tow. And I can't really show love when I am so exhausted and in a hurry that my fuse is so short I explode and I don't have time to deal with the heart.
So I am doing my best to keep our lives slow and simple. To have just enough activity to keep us engaged, but not so much that we can still take our time getting places and have the freedom to stop to pick up acorns or be available to help out a neighbor in a pinch. To give Zoë plenty of unorganized playtime to foster her incredible imagination and develop her many talents - songwriting, architecture design, painting, fashion and dramatic role playing. To get to know our neighbors and learn to be good neighbors. To have time to listen and watch my children play together. To have time as a family. I'm loving this season of growth and learning to walk out motherhood by God's design. I am so thankful for this time I have to be home with my beautiful, crazy, wonderful kids. Now onto more about them!
Isaiah
We are so proud of our 6-month-old! Isaiah has already outgrown his 6-month clothes and is filling out the 9-month ones (and some 12-month pants!). He is living up to his nickname as Mr. Smiley, and is (usually) full of giggles and ready with a sweet smile when you catch his eye.
Isaiah is just starting to get the hang of sitting on his own, is busy trying out new sounds and levels of volume, and is working on perfecting his hand-eye coordination. Those hands are always moving and grabbing! And if you look really closely at his pictures, you will see two little bottom teeth just starting to poke through.
Never thought a skeleton could look so cute
First time in a swing!
Zoë
Zoë is blossoming in her many talents - songwriting, drawing/painting, dancing, storytelling - and is a great helper cooking in the kitchen, folding laundry and helping taking care of baby brother. In her best moments, she is sweet, thoughtful, caring, kind, and very concerned about the wellbeing of others.
Zoey and Zoë
Tinkerbell against the pirates
Neighborhood trick-or-treat!
Dancing with cousin Rebecca
Rapunzel and Curious George
New friend and neighbor Michael
Zoë's preschool room
Making scrambled eggs.
She has also mastered french toast.
Fun at an aquarium with Didi and Aunties
Mommy's old McDonald Barbies :)
Singing for baby brother
Enjoying the Log Cabin Village
Thanks to Didi for capturing some of these precious photos :)
There's a familiar axiom about academia that bears repeating here:
-You get a Bachelor's degree when you think you know everything.
-You get a Master's degree when you realize you don't know anything.
-You get a PhD when you realize you don't know anything and neither does anyone else.
Now, people who hold advanced degrees certainly know something about their field of study; however, all honest scholars recognize the vast body of knowledge in their own field, an insurmountable collection of learning that can never be acquired by one person (to say nothing of the other insurmountable collections in other disciplines).
I started this post with the axiom because it is an apt representation of my experience here for the first few weeks of my PhD program. As wonderful and life-giving as study is to me, it is a humbling, exhausting pursuit. It is also quite lonely (even with a family to come home to each night). There is so much to read, so much to hold in mind while reading, and so much to prepare for as I look to the future. My PhD experience is at once both full of elation and frustration. But as a wise friend here has said: "Everything is a process. The PhD process is no different. Take it one day, one book, one thought at a time." So that's what I've been trying to do - take my studies and progress one step at a time.
For this semester, I'm taking two courses (seminars) - Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible (Exodus) and Contemporary Issues in Hermeneutics (which is the study of interpretation). I only chose two courses this first semester because I wanted to get acclimated to the academic environment here, to do well in what I endeavored to do, and to not overwhelm my schedule as soon as I began this program. Over the next couple of years, I will be taking three to four courses/seminars so that I will finish coursework in 2.5 years from the start of my program.
The professors here are wonderful. The entire faculty promotes a "non-competitive" environment, advocating for collegial relationships and encouraging us to form alliances during our study rather than attempt to engage in some sort of "survival of the fittest" contest. I have come to deeply appreciate this characteristic of Brite. While I was applying to PhD programs, many seemed to promote exactly what Brite has tried to eradicate: an environment of competition. This is not to say that Brite is satisfied with mediocre scholarship. I feel that I am compelled to do my very best here. The difference is that I am in competition with myself and not my colleagues. I have already begun to make some meaningful connections and friendships. I hope that these relationships become lifelong as I already value their willingness to dialogue and discuss our respective research trajectories.
I'll end this post with a funny conversation I had about a week ago...
I normally study in the afternoons and then again after dinner. This means I'm usually at school from 8:00am until about 5:00pm, and then from 7pm to about 9:30-10:00pm most days. I probably don't need to be studying that long every night, but as I said above, I feel like I need to do well and so I take extra time going over my Hebrew and Greek, making sure I've read everything I can, etc. One night (around 9:00pm or so), I was leaving the building and I happened to bump into a professor who I have only briefly interacted with since coming to Brite (he doesn't teach anything in my areas of interest). Here was the conversation:
Professor: "Hope we (referring to the student with him) didn't bother you up there (referring up to the conference room where I usually study)..."
Me: "Oh, no - not at all. Couldn't hear you."
I then turned to walk out the door when he continued: "How's it going?"
Me, slightly confused: "...you mean tonight? It's going well, I suppose."
Professor: "Well, keep at it. You (presumably referring to my being in the conference room day and night) came up at the faculty meeting. We're all rootin' for you."
Me, still slightly confused: "Oh, well - thank you."
And then I left.
I was slightly knocked off balance by the conversation. First, I wasn't aware that people knew I was studying so much. It does go without saying that a PhD student studies all the time - but I didn't envision professors keeping tabs on how much I studied. Second, I didn't think that such activity would be mentioned at a faculty meeting. Third, a professor who barely knows me felt like he needed to encourage me in my studies. After I processed the conversation a little further, I have come to appreciate the care, attention, and investment that the staff and faculty have in their students. This isn't an institution where PhD students are bereft of support. A statement from orientation bears heavily on this sentiment:
"The donors who gave money for your scholarships could have easily given to organizations around the world that clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and care for the sick, oppressed, and enslaved. So why did they give their money to you instead of to Scripture-sanctioned needs? Because we see in you the gifts that, if cultivated, will far surpass the simple giving of money to needs. By investing in you all, we believe that you will be part of the transformation of lives around the world, helping to end things like hunger, trafficking, injustice, slavery, and all kinds of evil."
This is where I need to be right now, and I know that I will emerge from this program with the tools I need to participate in that "world-transforming" scholarship and advocacy.
But this post isn't all about me. Check out the pictures below to see what we've been up to!
Look who's FIVE months old!
Our little giggly boy
He can't get enough of her.
She can't get enough of him.
(Or his toys.)
Isaiah's favorite pastime -
he is really into grabbing things with his hands and loves to stand on those strong legs
Zoë and Zoey dress-up playdate
Tower-building master
Still sucking that thumb
Already a talker
Little fashionista
One of Zoë's favorite pastimes
The charmer
Donuts with Daddy at preschool!
Zoë's current most favorite activity in the world
(Unfortunately, it is not hers - but she enjoys borrowing it. ;)
Our little Zoë is growing up so fast! Today she had her first day of preschool in the "Thrilling 3's" class and absolutely loved it.
Her teachers are Ms. Kate and Ms. Larissa (pronounced with the short "i", but it is still weird to see "my" name written on every letter that comes home ;) and they are both very sweet. She has already made a friend with one of our neighbors and now classmate, who also happens to be named Zoey. Crazy!
Zoey & Zoë
I know she will love the time she has interacting and playing with other kids, and I can already tell that the teachers will be great at fostering her learning by creating an engaging environment for her to explore, play and create. What fun lies ahead!
